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Elise Walter | 18 March 2019
What one learns by spending time on planes is what it means to be human. Human in every sense of the word: the visceral, disgusting, smelly, kind, loud, and secret truth of personhood.

Sheelalipi Sahana | 11 March, 2019
Ariana Grande’s new album thank u, next is breaking records since it released on 8thFebruary 2019. “7 Rings” has become an anthem for millennial women across countries. Its global circulation begs the question— why?

A presentation by Vivek Santayana, ‘Rolling for Insight: How table-top role-playing games can change the way we see the world’.
Vivek won the award for ‘Best Presentation’ at LLC Blethers, an evening of academic storytelling with the University of Edinburgh, February 2019.

The revered series Doctor Who has faced harsh criticism in its last season: it was too PC; the actors failed to match the previous cast and even the stories lacked the thrilling qualities that Whovians have come to expect from their favourite TV show. Like all previous cast choices, the announcement of Jodie Whittaker taking the reins as the 13th Doctor was met with harsh opposition. Unlike the previous actors portraying the Doctor though, the disapproval did not abate, but seemed to alienate a significant number of fans. Now that Jodie’s first series is over, a closer look can be taken into the her portrayal of the Doctor.

Yan Li | 18 February, 2019
Have you ever pondered over the relationship between how we are entertained and who we are? The TV drama Black Mirroris often regarded as science fiction that aims to reexamine the role of technology in our society. However, I see this episode differently. It is more like an attack on (overly) widespread, immoderate and reckless entertainment than a denunciation of technology. In other words, it is the way human beings present and perceive themselves via entertainment that is being mocked, and technology is the accomplice in this five-act tragedy.

Gabriel Smith | 11 February, 2018
Upon entering a bookshop, the canny reader/consumer (a heart-breaking slash) becomes aware that critics’ praise now adorns the cover of every newly released book, and therefore no book can be chosen on the basis of what critics are saying on its dustjacket. A massively inflationary adjectival market has rendered superlatives valueless.

Anne Liebig | 4 February, 2019
To be or not to be – who has not heard, used, or abused this phrase, written down over 400 years ago? Who cannot conjure up a spontaneous image of the Bard, or name at least one of his plays? Shakespeare has performed a feat that few other writers have achieved across the globe: he has been elevated to a symbol of national culture. But when did you last stop and ask yourself what the point of having a so-called national poet really was?

Eva Dieteren | 28 January, 2019
When I heard that Greta Gerwig directed a film starring Saoirse Ronan, there was an immediate sense of excitement followed by me convincing everyone I know to come and see it with me. When I saw the poster, however, I hesitated. It showed the character of Ladybird and what particularly stood out for me was her pink hair. It is not that I do not like pink hair, but the moment that I saw Ladybird I thought: please no, not another Manic Pixie Dream Girl film.

Uttara Rangarajan | 21 January
Art museums have long been an elite space, subsumed within hierarchies of colour and class while displaying work made for the rich and powerful. Western art has traditionally worked from within the colonial gaze to present whiteness as the norm, to invisibilise or stereotype people of other ethnicities. In the modern era, as people from around the world strive to break free of these categories, one of the most powerful challenges to western iconography has emerged from music videos which reinvent and undermine the Eurocentricism of western art.

Katherine Carlman | 14 January, 2019
“I’m very good at math,” the boy said as I passed. He was five or six years old and made this declaration not to me, but to the adult who belonged with him. With his mop of long curls and declaration of brilliance, he had more self-confidence than I’ve ever had. How could a child have more self-assurance than a fifty-year-old woman? He must be an only child, I reasoned – maybe an oldest child, but certainly not the youngest.